Gaga Translation

Promoter of American musician Lady Gaga has revealed that the performer is thinking of recording future records in languages other than English.

Ralph Simon revealed in a recent interview to a Russian news agency that he has approached Lady Gaga about recording one of her “big songs for next year in Russian”. The move would be an attempt to broaden the appeal of the artist, particularly within the younger demographic. Simon believes that the “young community” would feel a stronger connection to the artist if she were to use their native tongue; furthermore she would also win over current non-fans by making them believe that she “thinks about Russia” and not just her charting in the US and UK.

Lady Gaga is in many ways the ideal performer to take the next step into multilingual recording. She is already a global star within the English language and can therefore afford to risk branching out. Also as the possessor of both Italian and French roots, she has a ready made non-English language ancestry that she could play up for the European market; her latest song ‘Alejandro’, released in May 2010, showed a musical progression towards the European continent as it channelled the synthpop beats of giants such as ABBA and Ace of Base. In the past Gaga has already sampled other languages within her songs, such as Swedish for the video of ‘Paparazzi’ (2008) and French for the lyrics of ‘Bad Romance’ (2009), showing that she does already consider the linguistic reaches of her music.

The idea is currently in its infancy under the suggestion of Simon, but there is the possibility that Gaga may use “Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese and Hindi” as the primary languages for selected songs featured on her forthcoming album ‘Born This Way’, which will be released in May 2011.

If this does come into fruition then Gaga looks likely to strength her existing fanbase outside of the US/UK by being able to directly address her audiences on tour. Moreover she could also draw on a new audience who condemn the pressure faced by artists, especially in the pop genre, to sing in English and welcome the nativism of her new tracks. Evidence of this English-bias includes the predominance of English-language songs within the Eurovision Song Contest, including the 2010 German winner Lena and her English-language song ‘Satellite’. Recent artists who have transplanted their own languages for English include t.A.T.u. (Russian), Basshunter (Swedish), Robyn (Swedish), Hi-Standard (Japan) and Shakira (Columbia- Spanish).

Not just satisfied with global domination could Lady Gaga also be the woman that opens the flood-gates for equality in the language of pop music?